real or imaginary, forced to pay part immediately, and to enter into bonds to pay the balance. He was therefore at the King's mercy. The arrangements were assessed and enforced by a sub-committee of the King's Council called the Council Learned in the Law, headed by Edmund Dudley, with Sir Richard Empson as a powerful member. In the Autumn of 1508, Denys moved centre stage as the King recovered from a serious illness and decided on a wholesale extension of his policy of fiscal terrorism. Henry cast his net wider than just the elite, and created the post of Surveyor of the King's Prerogative, charged with the rigorous and universal enforcement of the King's rights as head of the feudal system. Local commissioners were appointed under Edward Belknap to enforce the policy on a county by county basis. All the elements of an alternative system of taxation were in place - permanent, nation-wide and exempt from either parliamentary authority or scrutiny. The terms of Belknap's appointment are silent on what became of his profits, but it soon became clear they were to be paid over directly to Denys as a kind of private royal “slush fund.” Where they were paid is interesting: some at Greenwich Palace, but some at the private royal residences of Wanstead (of which Denys was the official keeper) and Hanworth. The last recording of such a paying-over of "fines assessed by the King's highness" was that paid by Belknap to Denys at Hanworth in February 1509, at which date the account book breaks off, incomplete It is clear that Denys re-invested these funds in real-estate as a bare trustee for the King, using a group of feoffees (persons to whom grants of freehold property are made), many of whom were close to the King. That is to say the King must have had absolute confidence in him that he would not misappropriate the funds, for as a bare trustee, no written agreement would have existed. The existence of such a system, where the courtiers of the Privy Chamber started to control the national finances, was described in 1917 by Newton, A.P. in King's Chamber under the Early Tudors, and by Dietz, Frederick C. in English Government Finance 1485–1558, Illinois, 1920. It was also proposed by Dr. Walter C. Richardson in his book: Tudor Chamber Administration 1485–1547, Baton Rouge, 1952. David Starkey's book, Henry, Virtuous Prince, (2008)